


Aluminum Christmas Trees

by RobotSquid



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Christmas, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-28 00:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobotSquid/pseuds/RobotSquid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave goes home for Christmas for the first time since going to college, and finds that things have changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aluminum Christmas Trees

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for my good friend renaris on Tumblr =)

You’re a little surprised he came to pick you up. You were expecting for him to just call you a cab, or at least have to call one yourself. But your brother showed up himself, in an actual car. You’re pretty sure it’s not his car. But he tells you it is.

As you put your stuff in the trunk and get into the pre-warmed sedan, you’re not exactly sure why you feel nervous. Your bro starts to navigate the hellish lanes that lead out of the airport and onto the main road, and as you probably should have expected he doesn’t do it with the greatest degree of regard for human safety. You’re pretty sure he would have plowed right through that open car door had the owner not pulled it shut at the last possible second.

You want to smile. But you don’t. You just kind of nod in quiet, stoic approval.

You wonder if the fact that Bro has a car now means that things changed a lot since you went to school. You haven’t seen your Bro in like a year and even though you talk to him on the phone occasionally—the phone he bought you when you went away and you’re still not sure he could actually afford it then—you really have absolutely no idea what he’s been doing with himself. Mostly he just asks about you. How your classes are going, if you’ve had any sloppy makeouts, that sort of thing.

Then you came home for Christmas and see that he’s got himself an actual fucking car.

And you don’t know if you’re proud or upset.

It’s a cold as fuck winter this year, even this far south. As he pulls the car up to the curb to park it you actually start to see flurries coming down. You didn’t bring a whole lot of stuff home. Just a suitcase full of a handful of clothes—you’re not even sure if the ones you grabbed match, not that it matters—your laptop, and your Bro’s Christmas present. It’s not wrapped yet. You’re not sure how you’re going to wrap it, or if you’re just going to do the lazy thing, slap a bow on it, and call it a day.

The apartment looks the same. It’s kind of nice, being back home. Back home with your Bro, and you sort of wish you could stay here and it could be like it used to be, just you and him and his fucking puppet traps and your swordfights on the roof…you just barely hide a smirk. That always made the girls at school swoon, telling them that you actually swordfought with your brother. All the other guys just said you were a lying, arrogant douche. Which you were, of course, but that had nothing to do with your old hobbies.

As you set your things down on the sofa, you pause, suddenly taken aback.

“What the fuck is this?” you ask, gesturing towards the corner of the living room.

“It’s our Christmas tree, what does it look like?” Bro replies, disappearing into the kitchen.

You don’t really know what to make of it. He actually went out and got one of those pink aluminum deals, like you thought they didn’t even _make_ anymore. You didn’t even think they were real. Bro had told you about them one year and you were certain he was lying, being some sort of ironic asshole at the level you couldn’t quite grasp.

The two of you had never been able to afford a real Christmas tree, and could barely even afford a fake one. Every year you pulled out this shitty two-footer that Bro had bought at a yard sale. You didn’t have regular ornaments, not really…you both just sort of added whatever you wanted to the tree all during the month, trying to one-up the other in terms of layers and layers of irony. You still remember the Christmas morning you ran out into the living room and found Lil’ Cal’s head as the star on top of the tree.

“You want something to eat?” came your Bro’s voice from the kitchen. You grin smugly to yourself.

“Yeah, sure,” you reply, walking in there, expecting to see him with the phone in one hand and a take-out menu in the other.

But he’s actually looking in the fridge. And there’s…fucking _food_ in it. You stop at the doorway. There’s not even a fucking puppet in the blender. There’s no swords to be seen, shitty or otherwise. It actually looks like a real kitchen. You step inside, trying not to look like this scares the living hell out of you.

“I was gonna make something for dinner but if you want a snack now you can have this kind of shitty meatloaf I made last night,” your Bro tells you, pulling out an aluminum foil covered block of something and tossing it onto the table. You’re pretty sure it’s not actually food. But you pull back the foil expectantly, and see that yeah. Yeah it actually is meatloaf. You find a fork and push it through the center. There’s no puppet head in there either or anything.

Bro never cooked anything before. Nothing really past the occasional spaghetti or chicken. Most of your food growing up had been frozen or take-out, which was fine with you, because you couldn’t imagine trusting anything that Bro might have cooked up. Not with the state of the kitchen back then, anyway…even if he had been sincere you doubt you would have made it through your childhood without at least one piece of sword shrapnel tearing up your insides.

You take a bite of the cold meatloaf just to test it. It actually doesn’t taste bad. Once you’re done chewing it up and eating it, you look up and see that your Bro’s watching you. His face isn’t readable…as if it ever was. He almost looks like he’s waiting for…approval?

You’re suddenly extremely fucking uncomfortable.

“I guess I’ll eat this shit if it’s all you’ve got,” you say, digging out another forkful. Bro grins at you and he ducks back into the fridge. You sit down at the table—still that same old crappy plastic fold-out thing—and pick at the meatloaf, watching him pull out actual ingredients for actual food, and you don’t know what to think.

\---

turntechGodhead (TG) began pestering ectoBiologist (EB)

TG: hey  
EB: hi dave!!  
EB: did you make it home okay?  
TG: yeah  
TG: pretty sure i pissed off the old lady next to me on the plane with my headphones blaring so loud  
TG: she kept giving me dirty looks  
TG: and the one time she actually got up the old wrinkly courage to tell me to turn it down i replied to her in rap form  
TG: i don’t think she understood me but it was basically along the lines of go fuck yourself except underlaid with insanely sick beats  
EB: hehehe  
EB: hey that reminds me i listened to that recording you sent me the other day  
EB: you’re getting really good, dave!  
EB: i don’t know why you won’t enter a contest or something  
TG: because i’m not a fucking sellout?  
EB: haha you are so weird  
EB: you can only be a sellout if you’re like actually famous to begin with  
TG: maybe i was always famous and you just never knew it  
TG: maybe there’s this whole underground scene dedicated to this awesomely sicknasty dude called dave strider  
TG: and everybody talks about how fucking chill and full of swag this guy is  
TG: but if you saw him on the street he’d just regard you coolly through his shades and if you asked him who he was he’d just say nah man that ain’t me and walk off into the sunset while the ladies threw all their bras after him  
EB: um okay whatever  
EB: how’s your bro?  
TG: freaking me the fuck out as usual  
EB: still with that weird puppet shit?  
EB: don’t feel bad dave my dad still has all these fucking harlequins everywhere  
TG: no it’s not that  
TG: there’s actually not a damn puppet to be found  
TG: the entire apartment is entirely devoid of any and all plush rumps  
TG: it is completely assless up in here  
EB: i…guess that’s a good thing then?  
TG: i don’t know  
EB: so…you WANT the asses?  
TG: that’s not what i said  
EB: look dave i know you were raised in a household with a puppetsexual and if that’s how you roll now you know there’ll never be any judgment from me  
TG: dammit egbert  
TG: fucking listen  
TG: basically my issue is this  
TG: i haven’t been home in like a year or something and i haven’t seen my bro in that long either so i guess maybe i expected to come home and everything would be just how i left it but the whole apartment is just giving me the finger about it  
EB: well he’s still your bro, isn’t he  
TG: see that’s the thing  
TG: i don’t even fucking know  
TG: and the thing that’s freaking me the fuck out the most  
TG: is that i’m not sure if i ever knew  
TG: and now i’m wondering like, was he better off without me?  
EB: dave you know that’s not true  
TG: well how do you know  
TG: guy went and got himself a fucking car and he knows how to cook now in the year i’ve been gone  
EB: maybe he learned to cook for you!  
TG: bull fucking shit  
TG: whatever egbert i just don’t know  
EB: well you know dave sometimes people do things like as a form of generosity?  
TG: not in this fucking family  
TG: thing is i can’t figure out what’s supposed to be ironic about any of it, and the possibility that it might not be is just kind of upsetting all right  
EB: you’re a weird guy dave strider  
EB: i wouldn’t worry too much about it. i think that’s your problem, for a swaggishly chill guy you sure do worry a lot  
EB: i mean seriously though doesn’t it get tiring acting the opposite of how you really feel all the time?  
EB: maybe this is just your bro’s way of telling you that you don’t have to do that anymore  
TG: i don’t know why that would just stop being a thing  
TG: but whatever. thanks anyway egderp  
EG: anytime! :)

\---

You can’t sleep, so you’re wrapping Bro’s present instead. Honestly you couldn’t think of anything to get him so you just recorded a bunch of your stuff onto a CD. You think maybe he can use it as remix fodder or something, maybe sample a few things from it. You try to think of how that can possibly be construed as ironic but you give up, because it’s making you really fucking tired.

Bro had cooked pork chops for dinner last night and you pretty much can’t stop thinking about them. For a couple of reasons, really…first of all they were fucking delicious. Second of all, that’s not what you told him. He laughed when you said they were the worst fucking thing you’d ever tasted, but you think that’s just because he thinks you expected that reaction, which you didn’t really…you thought he expected that response from you. So now you have no idea what you should have said, or how he really wanted to react.

You’re confused now, and it’s making this wrapping job look really shitty. Not that it matters. You feel like wrapping it nicely would distort his expectations of what laid underneath it, and it’d only disappoint him. Nah, you _should_ wrap it shitty. That way he doesn’t get too excited about it.

So there, it looks like the best shitty wrapping job you’ve ever done. You decide to go throw it under the tree because, well, tomorrow’s Christmas morning, and it might as well be there. You remember that Bro probably still sleeps on the couch so you take care to be quiet as you walk out into the living room.

As you walk into the room, you see that the pink tree has something new underneath it. It’s a huge-ass box, big enough to hold a TV or something. It’s addressed to you. Well, you know for damn sure that Bro didn’t buy you a TV for Christmas. Cautiously, you poke at it, and it’s got some weight to it. You feel a little swell of excitement and then stuff it away. It’s probably full of all the smuppets that conspicuously _aren’t_ every-fucking-where in the apartment. You set Bro’s tiny little present down next to it and head back to bed.

\---

Next thing you know you’re yanked out of bed and you hit the floor hard.

“Wake up, you fat nasty trash, it’s Christmas,” you hear your Bro say.

“What the _fuck_ ,” you mumble, sitting up and rubbing your head. Something in the apartment smells really good. Shit. He cooked again, didn’t he?

“Seriously, get up,” Bro says, heading out into the living room. “I have shit to give you.”

You grumble and get to your feet. You head into the kitchen and it smells like pancakes. Bro’s made a whole stack of them and they look really damn good. You realize how hungry you are and immediately start piling them on a plate. Like you expected, they’re just as good as they look.

“Like ‘em?” Bro asks you.

You’re about to tell him that they’re fucking gross, but something stops you. You swallow what’s in your mouth, hesitate, and eventually say, “…Yeah. They’re really good, Bro. …Thanks.”

You expect him to make some smartass remark. But he doesn’t. He just smiles a little bit, which is weird enough in itself, and starts making a few more pancakes.

You eat the rest of your breakfast with some discomfort. You don’t know why such a little thing like complimenting your brother on a skill he obviously has is freaking you out so bad. You don’t know why you feel like a huge pussy for admitting it. You don’t know why he’s not making fun of you, and why you even _want_ him to make fun of you. You try to relax but something is just too fucking weird. You’ve just…the two of you have never…you never talked like this. You both rarely ever talked at all. He just went and changed way too fucking much; you don’t know how to deal with him anymore.

Finally, breakfast is over and Bro wants you to go open your present. You sit down on the couch and he scoots the monstrosity that is your gift over in front of you. You don’t have a single fucking clue what’s inside. So you stall.

“Here,” you say, reaching for his present and handing it to him. “Got you this.”

He turns it over in his hand, then rips the paper off in one motion. “…A blank CD?” he asks.

“It’s not blank.”

“Well, what the fuck’s on it?” he questions with a laugh.

You shrug. “Just some shit I threw together. Thought you could use it somehow.”

“…Huh.” He nods in approval, and sets it on the coffee table. “Now yours.”

You look at it suspiciously, but then start tearing off the paper. It’s just a white box. Okay. You take the top off, and there’s another box in there. Shit, here we go. You open like nine other boxes just full of smaller and smaller boxes, and you supposed you should have figured this was what he would do, until finally you’re down to a box that can fit in the palm of your hand.

You open it up, and it’s got a key inside.

A car key.

You have absolutely no fucking idea what to say. You just sort of stare at it, in shock, for a good solid minute.

“It’s to the one I picked you up in yesterday,” your Bro tells you. You look up to meet his eyes and he looks kind of excited and expectant and almost embarrassed at the same time. “I mean I know it’s kind of a piece of shit but I think it should be all right.”

“Um…I, uh….” You clear your throat, then start faking a sudden coughing fit. If just to avert your eyes, which you forgot to put shades on this morning. Fuck, you don’t even know what to say to this. Because it was fucking weird enough having to deal with the fact that your Bro got himself a car, but now that it turns out the car’s really for _you_? You don’t know how to deal with an act of kindness like that. You weren’t exactly raised in the type of an environment where things like that existed….

So how the fuck does he expect you to deal with it now?

“I had this idea,” your Bro’s saying, and you turn back to face him once you’re certain the stoic look is back in place. “I mean, you might think it’s fucking stupid but it’s just an idea, so you tell me…thought maybe we could take the thing out for a drive. I mean, you could drive it, ‘cause it’s yours now…thought maybe we could take a trip down to your school. You know, when your winter break’s over.”

“That’s a long fuckin’ way, Bro,” you say.

“Good thing you made that CD, then. Give us something to listen to on the way.”

You really are at a loss for what to say now. He looks…sincere. Which is fucking scaring the shit out of you. Sincerity’s not what you were taught. Authenticity is something you know absolutely fucking nothing about. You realize that you don’t know how to talk to your brother unless you’re both being completely fucking fake.

But this isn’t fake. This car key in your hand isn’t fake, nor is the intention with which it was given to you. The fact that he likes his gift of your dumb little CD isn’t fake, the fucking pancakes this morning weren’t fake, neither were the pork chops or the meatloaf or even this stupid pink aluminum tree, that’s not fake either. The tree’s not ironic. No, that fucking ghastly thing is _real_ , Bro put it there because when you were a kid you always wondered if they were real, and he bought it because he remembered that. Because sort of deep down inside you always wanted one for your apartment, and this one isn’t a ironic mockery of that. It’s not fake. It’s not a joke.

Perhaps your relationship with your brother was always a joke, an inside joke that you both thought you were in on but the joke was really on the two of you. Maybe Bro realized that while you were away. Didn’t want you to come home to somebody that was just going to act like he wasn’t proud of you. The thought that Bro could be _proud_ of you was…you swallow hard, because shit, you don’t know how to deal with the feeling that thought gave you. You don’t know how to deal with the thought itself.

The thought that Bro’s not just being your bro. He’s also being your father. Somebody who honestly looked at somebody like Dave Strider and said, _You’ve done good, kid._

Maybe Bro was just trying to be your bro and your dad at the same time when you were growing up. Maybe that’s why stuff was so fucking weird around the apartment all the time. Why he attempted to teach you stuff through veiled irony, why he always said things by saying nothing at all. Trying to be a father by acting like a brother. But you figure…he was good at those things. Maybe his methodology could have used some work, but you can both work on it.

“…Thanks,” you say finally. And you smile. You smile at him for real. “Thanks, Bro. There’s only one thing, though.”

“What’s that?” he asks with a huge grin.

“Thing’s a fucking stick shift. I don’t know how to do that.”

“Shit, really?” He sighs and get to his feet, gesturing for you to follow. “Well, come on, I’ll teach you.”


End file.
